Interview: Fisheries Department

It was difficult tracking someone down this week due to the American Fisheries Society meeting, but I finally managed to catch Dr. Oncorhynchus at his office in the Nash building. The interview that followed was something more of a conversation, lightly seasoned with the occasional question to keep things flowing.

Dr. Oncorhynchus said that, while he may have seen a slight decline in grammar over his years of teaching, it wasn't the most obvious pattern he had seen during his teaching career. What really stood out to him was the way students' grammar changed throughout a term. The first papers of the term tended to be a lot sloppier than those turned in at the end. Oncorhynchus said he thought this had to do with students not realizing the importance of their grammar in scientific essays; a faux pas Oncorhynchus cured them of when the first graded papers were returned.

As far as grammatical pet peeves go: Oncorhyncus said that wordiness was what he least liked to see in a paper. He believes that many students, particularly graduate students, have a tendency to use so many words in a sentence that it muddies the underlying meaning. In the scientific community, clarity and conciseness are crucial. Most scientific papers contain enough large words as it is, without further complicating them with unnecessary ones.